5,353 texts · Page 89 of 112
Rabbi Akiba was the greatest sage of his generation, but even he could not escape the anxieties of a father. The astrologers had warned him: his daughter was destined to die on her...
When Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan to scout the territory before the Israelite invasion, ten of them came back terrified. "We saw giants there," they reported. "T...
The Midrash (Pesikta Rabbati 19, Tanhuma Pinehas) tells a cautionary tale about gluttony — the sin of making the stomach into a god, of subordinating every other value to the next ...
The Midrash on the Ten Commandments tells the story of a faithful woman whose devotion was tested beyond what most people could endure — and who emerged triumphant. A certain man w...
Moses stood apart from every other prophet who ever lived. The rabbis taught that while other prophets saw God through clouded glass, Moses alone saw through a clear lens — an unob...
There was once a man so wicked that the entire town avoided him. He cheated in business, spoke cruelty to strangers, and mocked the sages when they tried to rebuke him. Everyone ag...
A young boy discovered that he could understand the language of birds. When sparrows chattered on the rooftops, he heard gossip. When ravens called from the treetops, he heard warn...
Maimonides — the great philosopher, physician, and legal authority — once interpreted a king's dream with such precision that the story entered the canon of Jewish wisdom tales alo...
The tale of "Half a Friend" is among the most widely circulated stories in medieval Jewish ethical literature. It poses a question that cuts to the heart of human relationships: wh...
Two friends loved the same woman. This is the setup for one of the most painful dilemmas in human experience — and the Jewish version of the story resolves it with an act of sacrif...
The meeting — whether real or legendary — between Rabbi Eleazar of Worms and Maimonides represents one of the great contrasts in Jewish intellectual history. Eleazar, the Ashkenazi...
A man once made a vow that he would never lose his temper, no matter what his wife did to provoke him. According to a tale preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (compiled by Moses...
Rabbi Akiba and the pearl — a story about how the greatest treasures are sometimes hidden in the most unlikely places. The tale is preserved in medieval collections including the M...
A king once raised a boy in total isolation, keeping him locked away from birth so that he would never see a woman. According to a tale preserved in the Exempla of the Rabbis (comp...
Two robbers had been terrorizing the roads between towns, ambushing travelers, stealing their goods, and leaving them bruised and empty-handed in the dust. The local authorities se...
The Midrash (Tanhuma, Teruma) teaches that the merchandise of a Torah scholar is unlike any other merchandise in the world. When a merchant sells a bolt of cloth, the cloth leaves ...
Korah's riches were legendary — and his fall was proportional to his wealth. The Talmud (Pesahim 119a, Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 10:1) and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer describe a fortun...
A heretic challenged the sages with a question about God's justice toward the disabled. "If your God is good, why does He create people who are maimed — the blind, the deaf, the la...
In a certain town, a young woman had been married for years but could not conceive. Her husband loved her, and they prayed together for a child, but month after month passed with n...
A wealthy man grew so weary of his riches that he decided to give them away — but not to the poor. He wandered outside the city and found a beggar sitting in the dust, dressed in r...
Two friends loved each other so deeply that one was willing to die for the other — and the other refused to let him. This tale of ultimate friendship, preserved in the Exempla of t...
In a time of devastating drought, the people of Israel came to Honi ha-Meagel — "Honi the Circle-Drawer" — and begged him to pray for rain. Honi drew a circle in the dirt, stepped ...
A man hid his money in a hollow tree — and the story of what happened to that money became a parable about the cleverness of thieves and the greater cleverness of the righteous. Th...
Three chests were placed before a person who was told to choose one — and the story of that choice became a famous parable about the difference between appearance and reality. The ...
Solomon and chess — a pairing that connects the king's legendary wisdom with the world's most intellectual game. While chess in its modern form postdates Solomon by many centuries,...
A bird served as a witness in a case of justice — and its testimony was accepted because God uses all of creation, even the smallest creatures, to ensure that truth is revealed. Th...
God’s Justice. Meg. Esther (Yiddish) *593- Griinbaum, Jiid. Deutsch. Chrest. p. 215—18. Behrnauer, ZDMG. XVI, p. 762. Brockhaus, ZDMG., XIV, p. 7o6f. Gellert, Das Schicksal. Gesta ...
A man was granted a wish — and what he wished for became the source of his downfall. The tale of the "Foolish Wish" is found in dozens of cultures, but the Jewish version carries a...
A man tore his mantle in half and gave half to a stranger — an act of generosity that became the seed of a much larger story. The "Half the Mantle" tale is found across many cultur...
Three questions were posed to a sage — and his answers became legendary. The "Three Questions" format appears throughout medieval literature, but the Jewish versions are distinguis...
Three maxims were given to a man — three simple rules for living — and his obedience to these maxims saved his life. The tale, found in Jewish and comparative folklore collections,...
A Jewish man and a gentile once made a wager about whose religion was true. Satan, disguised as an ordinary man, appeared and ruled in favor of the gentile, who took all the money....
"Cast your bread upon the waters, for you shall find it after many days" (Ecclesiastes 11:1). This verse became the foundation for one of the most frequently told stories in the Je...
The evil eye is a supposed power of bewitching or harming by spiteful looks, attributed to certain persons as a natural endowment. This belief was widespread among ancient civiliza...
Israel in Egypt — fruitful and multiplying, a thousand thousand and myriad myriads — and still, in God's eyes, like a single beloved child. That's the paradox this section of Aggad...
Why does the world hold together? Jeremiah gives the unlikely answer: "If not for My covenant day and night, I would not have established the fixed order of heaven and earth" (Jere...
Isaiah says God is "calling from the east a bird of prey, a man of my counsel from a distant land" (Isaiah 46:11). The rabbis identified that bird of prey as Abraham. He came from ...
"Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power" (Exodus 15:6). The rabbis tracked the right hand of God through every book of scripture and found the same pattern everywhere: when ...
King David grew old, and no one could warm him (1 Kings 1:1). The doctors tried blankets. They tried attendants. His body, which had survived lions and bears and Goliath and armies...
David lifts his eyes to the mountains and prays — "A song of ascents" — and God answers him through a text he might not have expected: Moses's blessing of Judah. "And this is the b...
"Many peoples have afflicted me from my youth" (Psalm 129:1). The Assembly of Israel — the collective voice of the nation — says this as a Song of Ascents, sung while ascending to ...
A small city, few people, a great king who comes and builds fortifications — (Ecclesiastes 9:14) describes something small being threatened by something enormous. The rabbis identi...
When Jacob died in Egypt and his sons carried his body back to the land of Canaan for burial, an unusual procession formed. The sons of Esau, the sons of Ishmael, and the sons of K...
A Roman Emperor once tried to embarrass Rabban Gamliel with a joke that sounded, at first, like a theological objection. "Your God is a thief," the Emperor said. "He put Adam into ...
(Genesis 6:6) is one of the most unsettling verses in the Torah: And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. How could the All-Know...
Rav Acha taught that before Adam was created, God turned to the ministering angels and consulted with them. "Shall we make man?" He asked. The angels answered honestly: "What good ...
The rabbis divided the first day of Adam's life into twelve hours, and read his whole arc, from dust to exile, into a single daylight. In the first hour the dust was gathered from ...
When Abraham came to the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah, he did not find the cave empty. According to the Yalkut Chadash, the first couple was already there, and they were not ple...
